From Lisa's Website:
A couple of months before I was scheduled for an event for ROCK PAPER TIGER at the wonderful San Diego bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy,
co-owner Maryelizabeth Hart emailed me to ask if I had any deep
connection to San Diego. I wrote back, saying, “I sure do! Born and
raised and mostly educated there, worked at the San Diego Zoo and still
root for the Padres and the Chargers” (I am not a masochist—why do you
say that?)
It turned out that Maryelizabeth was editing an upcoming volume in Akashic Books’ award-winning, critically acclaimed “Noir” series
—to quote Akashic, “Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one
set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the
book”—and my hometown was up to bat!
I was really excited about this for a couple of reasons.
First, while San Diego may not seem as exotic as say, Beijing, I still
think the city is a really interesting and underutilized setting for
fiction, and a lot stranger than it seems on the surface. Second, I knew
the critical reputation of these books—they always have a group of fine
authors with some real heavy-hitters included.
So I was thrilled to be asked. I was also, well, slightly
terrified. I hadn’t written a short story since college, and that was *
mumble, mumble * years ago. Writing is not an easy process for me
anyway. I wasn’t sure if I could do it, particularly because I was about
to embark on publicity for the ROCK PAPER TIGER release and had a bunch
of travel for that planned over the summer. But I had to give the story
a shot.
My
first thought was to do something set at the San Diego Zoo, where I had
worked for many summers and weekends through high school and college.
I’d visited the Zoo a few times since moving to Venice but not in the
last year or two, so the first thing I wanted to do was go there and
check it out and see what had changed. I tend to be inspired by place,
in any case, and the truth was, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to
write about.
About five minutes after I got to the Zoo, I realized that it
had changed so much there was simply no way I could write a story from
the perspective of someone who worked there, not without way more
research than I had time to do. But maybe I could still use it as a
setting. I wandered around to see what inspired me.
One area in particular that I found fascinating was the new
Elephant Mesa, which featured recreations of extinct animals that had
once populated Southern California and many reminders to visitors about
the endangered status of so much of our wildlife and of the planet
itself. Not all the guests seemed impressed by the exhortations to
“Conserve, Reuse, Recycle”—I heard one mutter something about how global
warming was a hoax. But I appreciated the San Diego Zoo’s sense of
mission. One of the things I loved about working at the Zoo was that the
organization does genuinely good work. I found the exhibit a little
eerie and somehow poignant, a reminder of how man has affected the
environment and not always for the better, and how everything passes,
regardless of how invulnerable and eternal it might seem.
I had an inspiration, but I didn’t have a story.
Then
I read an article about Ocean Beach, a community where I’d spent a lot
of time when I was younger. Ocean Beach is known for its tolerance and
even embrace of alternative lifestyles. It was the first place I’d ever
encountered a counter-culture, the first time I’d experienced that
thrill of contacting something that felt slightly illicit, a little
dangerous.
Also, OB was the beach where my family went most often when I
was a kid, so I have a strong sense of nostalgia about the place as
well.
The article
was about the controversy surrounding the latest generation of
transients to make their way to Ocean Beach, the actions of one
shopkeeper and the polarized responses of Ocean Beach residents. This
resonated with me because I live in Venice Beach, where we have many of
the same issues raised by a diverse homeless population and how best to
respond to the very complicated issue of homelessness and the resulting
impact on a community.
So, two inspirations. Still no story.
I kept thinking about “noir,” and what that meant to me. I
determined that the essence of noir was, “A man/woman meets a man/woman
who is no good for him/her, and bad things happen.”
Somehow, from all of this, I came up with the character of
Kari, a young woman recovering from a traumatic brain injury, who is
trying to rebuild her life while dealing with a horrific loss that she
can’t even exactly remember.
The result of all this is “Don’t Feed The Bums,” one of
fifteen stories included in Akashic’s SAN DIEGO NOIR. Maryelizabeth has
done a fantastic job collecting a diverse group of stories that cover
the complexity of “America’s Finest City,” with an incredible roster of
authors—I’m honored to be included.
